Theater troupe teaches schoolchildren to love literature

Actors from Teatr.Doc, Moscow Theatre of Documentary Plays, are going to instill schoolchildren with a love of books. Source: PhotoXPress

Actors from Teatr.Doc, a collective, political project, which produces topical documentary theatre, go to school to instill schoolchildren with a love of books.

Teatr.Doc, a
collective, political project in Moscow,
which produces topical documentary theatre, travels from school to school, getting students actively
involved in literature through story-telling. Actors re-tell the stories, which
range from Soviet children’s books to 19th-century Russian plays,
and students are drawn into performances in the classroom. The troupe has
toured various kinds of schools, even working with
migrant children and children with learning difficulties.

Teatr.Doc at school and at home

Teatr.Doc

This Moscow Theater of Documentary Plays was founded in 2002. Being an independent team-based project, the theatre mainly works with original texts, interviews and memoirs. The theatre does not have a stage as such; instead, the audience itself is drawn into the performance and becomes as important as the main characters. This is improvisation theatre in every sense of the word. One of the theatre’s main projects was the Emergency Theatre and ‘I’ training, which was geared toward integrating a person into current issues.

School No. 957 in Moscow’s Yuzhnoe Medvedkovo district caters
to children with learning difficulties. Today, their literature lesson will be
one to remember — it will be taught by actors of the documentary theatre
Teatr.Doc. There will be nothing prim, proper, strict or formal about this
lesson: the children are encouraged to talk, shout in excitement, interrupt
each other and go up to the blackboard without asking the teacher.

During the lecture, Aleksei
Bogachuk-Petukhov and Konstantin Kozhevnikov will tell (or, more accurately,
show) the children a story from a novella by Soviet children’s literature
writer, Nikolai Nosov. The novella is entitled “Vitya Maleev at School and at
Home.”

What is a novella, how is it
different from a novel, and why does the main character decide to do this or
that? The children answer all these questions as the chapter is being played
out. Aleksei and Konstantin not only retell the story, but they throw light on
its most important aspects. The duo explains the meaning of unfamiliar words
and plays the role of teacher, making sure the kids at the back of the class
are paying attention.

Near the board, where the teacher
normally stands, is a makeshift bed made out of chairs. An “actor” is chosen to
play the main part. He is given a blanket and lies peacefully on the chair-bed.
All the kids have a chance to stand up in front of the class. Some are
embarrassed and awkward, and others are impassive — and the one who plays the
main part is a born actor, as Konstantin and Aleksei remind him several times.

The class is getting excited — they
all want desperately to join in. The enthusiasm of the “audience” is at least
as palpable as that of a packed auditorium at a high-profile premier at the
Bolshoi Theatre.

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After their performance, the actors
organize a small quiz and explain why Shishkin’s main character did not want to
go to school. In a torrent of enthusiasm, the children tell their stories of
how they avoided coming to school: you can drip iodine onto sugar, pour glue up
your nose, and so on.

Aleksei and Konstantin enjoy talking
with the children, but are only worried by one thing: they need to get up
early, as lessons start at 8 a.m.;
and in the evening they will perform in another play. But now the main thing is
the children.

Day-to-day tasks

The actors at Teatr.Doc share
responsibility for the productions.

The group is formed of Aleksei
Bogachuk-Petukhov, Konstantin Kozhevnikov, Irina Vilkova, Tatiana Parshina,
Lyubov Strizhak and other participants in the project. They have a Facebook
page titled “Literary Masterpieces for Schoolchildren,” where they announce
events, pool ideas and resources for future performances, and share their
thoughts on how the shows went. There are currently several different performances
on the go.

At a school attended by many
children of migrant parents, the troupe prepared a performance based on Nikolai
Gogol’s “Night Before Christmas” — the story is told using the text and
involving the pupils. “This summer we worked at summer camp organized by a
migrant school.

Here we performed ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with the kids. And the
little girl who played Juliet burst into genuine tears when revealing her love
on stage. Then I understood that we were doing something right,” actress Irina
Vilkova says. “This is more than just an educational project; this is a whole new
field of research, looking at the group of children for whom we are doing this.
We are studying them and they are studying us and the theatre — and literature,
of course.”

The troupe has made four trips to
the Mozhaisk Educational Institute for minors. Here they held a master class
and actor’s training, invited a stuntman to show tricks, and performed sketches
with the kids.

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The children were surprisingly quick to catch on to the idea and
showed genuine enthusiasm, happily taking part in the show and not even moaning
when homework was handed out (the children were told to read Nikolai Gogol’s
comedy “The Government Inspector’ in their free time). The theatre troupe will
certainly be returning to check up on the children’s progress — or at least to
see how well they did their homework.

How it started

Part of the Teatr.Doc project is
sending actors out to take part in school activities. This project was thought
up last summer. Its main aim is to employ professional actors to help introduce
children to literary works on the school curriculum. The project “Masterpieces
of World Literature on Stage for Schoolchildren” was approved by the Department
of Culture for the city of Moscow
and officially launched in 2012.

The theatre troupe Teatr.Doc went to two
summer camps and successfully performed several performances together with the
children. Artistic director of Teatr.Doc, Elena Gremina, was responsible for
coming up with ideas. She hopes that, in this way, through performance,
interaction and communication, and through becoming acquainted with the most
famous works of literature, the children will start to show an interest in
reading.

This is especially necessary in this modern era, as computer games and
social networks have replaced this simple pleasure for both children and
adults.

All the plots and works are
presented using the story-telling genre (re-telling the story), and this is
what all participants in the Masterpieces of World Literature on Stage for
Schoolchildren do on a daily basis. Using this method, the actors have re-told
several works of classic Russian literature and have explained literary terms
in simple language that is accessible to children of all abilities.

Mission

The main aim of the actors at the
theatre is not just to re-tell the stories of works featured on the school
curriculum, but also to shed light on the fundamental values presented in these
works — spiritual beauty, family values, respect for tradition, love for Russia
and their hometowns.

The actors make sure their explanations of love and other
things that are important in life, such as literature, strike a chord with
everyone in the room, no matter what their age or learning ability. The problem
in today’s society is that children hardly read at all, and interest in the printed
word needs to be actively fostered.

Daniil, who regularly goes to the
theatre with his mother, said: “I never get around to reading — either there is
school or there are sports competitions. But I find it very interesting, and
it’s a big plus for knowledge — you need to know about the work of great
people.”